no place i'd rather be
by AngelicSentinel
Summary: Christmas in the mountains. Skip Beat Secret Santa exchange 2016. Future-fic.


The figure dressed in a bright pink coat waddled across the path that was rapidly filling with snow. She wore a knitted pink cap with a little white ball on top of it, a scarf wrapped around the bottom part of her face, and bright pink gloves.

A bundle of firewood filled her hands. She shivered and kept her head down against the driving wind that blew the ice-cold snow directly in her face. The sun was setting, and it was getting darker and colder. In a few short seconds, though, she had made her way to the back door. It was barely latched, and she bumped it open with her hip, putting the pile of wood against the floor of the entryway on top of the large pile that was already there, and dusting the bits of wood from her gloves.

She shut the door behind her, breathing a sigh of relief as the freezing wind immediately ceased.

"I'm back!" she called into the house.

"Welcome home!" a deep, warm voice called from the kitchen. She removed her gloves, hat, and coat, hanging them on the rack, and slipped out of her shoes by force of habit, even though this house had no guest slippers, the polished wood cold against her socked feet.

She walked into the house proper. She sniffed. The slightest smell of something burning filled the air. "Is something burning?" she asked.

A muffled curse. The sound of an oven door opening and slamming and the sharp hiss of pain, followed by another, louder curse. She shook her head and walked the short distance into the kitchen.

It was just as she suspected. Ren stood there, thumb in his mouth, a sheet of slightly burnt oatmeal raisin cookies in his other hand. "Hi?" he said sheepishly.

"Hi," Kyoko returned, a smile on her face. "Looks like you've been busy since I was gone."

Ren looked down at the cookies, a bit of a pout on his face. As always, Kyoko was reminded of a little puppy when he gave such a hangdog expression. "You tried?" she added.

"I wanted it to be a nice surprise," he admitted, looking down at the burnt pan.

"I was surprised," she said, patting his uninjured hand.

"I said a nice surprise, Kyoko," he muttered, voice petulant, and she laughed. Kyoko reached over and took a cookie.

"Careful, they're still hot," he said.

"I'm sure I'll be fine," she said, biting into the cookie. Her face pinched in disgust, though she struggled gamely to keep it from showing. It took a lot of jaw strength to bite through it, but she managed. Every chew was torture. He hadn't soaked the raisins before he added them, so they were dry and salty, and he'd oversalted the dough and overworked it, so it had hardened more than it should. Not to mention the salty charcoal burnt taste. "It's…good," she said.

Ren started laughing.

"What?" she asked, a little miffed.

Ren laughed harder. "Your face," he wheezed. "They're really that bad?"

Kyoko reached out and patted his head. "Good fifth try though."

Ren scraped the cookies into a bin, placing the dirty pan into the island sink. "And here I thought I'd finally improved this time," he said, laughter still in his voice, but Kyoko could tell there was a little bit of hurt in there.

She reached out and grabbed his hand, lacing their fingers together. "You've been trying so hard," she said. "You'll get there. It was a good effort."

"My wife is Japan's number one actress, a five-star chef, and entrepreneur of her own chain of businesses. How can I ever compare?" he said.

"Says Japan's number one actor, model, and supposed shoo-in for this year's Academy Award for Best Actor," Kyoko said. "I'm the one who should be grateful to you."

"Says Japan's number one actress and winner of last year's Academy Award for Best Actress," Ren countered. "First Japanese woman to win in that category, first Japanese performer to win one since Umeki Miyoshi, if you're going to say that."

Kyoko looked down, blushing. Ren grabbed her chin, made her look into his eyes. She leaned into his touch, his hand warm across her cheek, which was still a little cold because of the outside weather. "You're my inspiration," he said. "I've got a long way to go before I'm able to catch up to you."

Kyoko's blush grew deeper, and the full force of his warm, real smile was too much, even after several years. He touched her nose, and she searched desperately for a change of subject. "It was nice of your parents to lend us this chateau for a few weeks," she said.

"Their apology for the fiasco that was our wedding and our lack of honeymoon," he said.

"They're still apologising for that?" Kyoko asked. "We both work too much to take any real breaks." It was how she liked it. How Ren did too. They were both happier when they were working and surrounded by people.

"To be by ourselves, all alone on Christmas," Ren added. He frowned. "We're never by ourselves. I keep expecting Yashiro to pop out of the woodwork."

"I wouldn't put it past him. The President, either," Kyoko said. "I looked in the firewood pile," she said without an ounce of shame. It wouldn't have been the strangest thing Yashiro-san had ever done either, and that wasn't saying anything about the president. "Moko is so much more reasonable."

"You heard from her?"

"This morning. She flew out to Hawaii for her new film. I'm so happy for her!" Kyoko gushed. "As for myself, I'm already itching to get back to pre-production," she admitted. "It feels weird not to be working."

"It's Ogata's new film, right?" Ren asked. "That's the one you decided on?"

"How could I do anything else? It's his Hollywood debut. People are calling it the 'Japanese invasion,'" she said, shaking her head. "He said he wouldn't have any other lead but me," she said, a little bewildered. Sometimes it still amazed her how far she'd come from the broken-hearted little girl at Akatoki.

Ren looked towards the den where a merry little fire was roaring in the fireplace. "Fire's getting a little low. Thanks for getting the firewood for the night, by the way."

"That's what a team does!" Kyoko said brightly. "We take turns. You did it yesterday! Are you going to try a new batch?" she asked him. "We still have a ton of ingredients." Which wasn't really surprising at all, considering Ren's father and how much he ate.

"No, I think I've exhausted my cooking effort for today," he said. "I thought maybe we could watch something."

"Like what?"

"Something Christmas? Something traditional? When I was a kid, my mother would always put on those Rankin-Bass specials while my father was cooking the holiday meal. Just as background noise, really. I haven't watched them since I was very small."

"It's amazing how the traditions are so different," she said. "It's such a couple's day, but for you it was always about family."

"Well, it's even more special and significant than that," Ren said. "It's your birthday."

"So it is," Kyoko said. "And?"

"I thought maybe you could choose."

"I've never been a fan of television," Kyoko said, leaning over, hand cupping her mouth like she was confessing some deep, dark secret.

"How scandalous for an actor!" Ren said with a mock gasp. Kyoko giggled. "The Christmas lights, then?" Ren said. "Turn the lights off?"

"I'd like that," she said. "We could imagine they're stars. They're so pretty; they look like little fairy lights."

He took off his apron, and turned out all the lights, and they went and sat in front of the fire, hand in hand. Ren was almost too big for the part of the sectional sofa that sat four, but he stretched out anyway, head in Kyoko's lap, feet hanging over the arm.

The lights of the Christmas tree twinkled. Red and blue and green and yellow and purple and pink, running and dancing in a merry light, accompanied by the gambol of the fire as it flickered, casting everything in a warm orange glow. The smell of fir and the scent of hickory filled the room, drowning out the last of the burnt cookie.

It was peaceful there in the small mountain cabin, and warm. A small amount of brightly coloured presents sat underneath the tree, hidden promises to each other.

"Tell me my favourite story?" Ren heard Kyoko say above him.

Ren blinked. "Sure," he said. "It's been a while, but I think I remember how it goes," he teased.

"Kuon," she protested, but she was smiling.

"Hmm. It's the one about the fairy princess, right?"

"And her fairy prince," she reminded him.

"Okay. I think I have it in me." And while the lights danced, sparkling bright light around the room, a wash of colour, Ren began his story.

"There was a little princess once," Ren began "She was lost and alone by the river when a little demon came across her."

"He wasn't a demon," Kyoko protested.

A smile grew on his face. "He found her crying and it mystified him. You see, demons don't know much about about crying. Rage, and hurt, and bitterness, those are the things that demons know,"

"He knew about those things because some people are just jerks," Kyoko said with a scowl. Ren smiled up at her, grateful.

"Some called him royalty because his father was an important man. But the little demon didn't see it. All he saw were unfair comparisons. All he could see was his father's wings, and trying to reach that height left him exhausted. So his parents left the kingdom, if only for a moment, trying to give room for the little demon to grow."

"His parents were demons?" Kyoko asked, enraptured. It never failed to amuse Ren that she still loved the story so much. She acted as if she was hearing it for the first time, always.

"They were angels," Ren said. "High in the heavens and nigh unreachable for the little demon boy. He tried, but his wings were made of ripped leathery skin instead of feathers, and when he tried to fly, he got tangled in his tail. His father and mother loved the little demon very much, but they were unaware of the great divide between them."

"Great divide?" Kyoko asked, twirling her fingers through his forelock.

"He'd been an angel once, but he'd fallen without their knowledge. It was a large crack, like the fault between two continental plates.

"Still, they noticed someone was wrong. So they took him away, back to his father's country where his father had been born from humble origins, where he had transformed from a mortal man into the highest of angels.

"The little demon hated it. Everything was strange in this new country, and he wasn't good at speaking the language. He couldn't even read or write it. It made him feel stupid, so one day he just left. He sneaked out, and walked along the river, and that's where he found the little lost princess crying."

"Why was she crying?" Kyoko asked.

"The princess was the kindest, most gentle creature in the land. She tried her hardest, and always did her best, but that still wasn't enough for her broken mother, or for the boy she called her prince."

Kyoko blushed. "Every time you retell it, you go too far," she said.

"How can I not?" Ren said. "I'm married to the most compassionate woman I've ever met."

"Kuon!"

"The demon didn't know what to do for her tears. He felt helpless. But when she looked up and saw him, her tears stopped, because she thought he was the most magical creature she'd ever seen. She didn't call him a demon. She called him—"

"A fairy," Kyoko whispered.

"A fairy," Ren confirmed. "He didn't want to tell her he was a bad person. He didn't want to tell her he was a demon. Because when she called him a fairy, for the first time in a long time, he felt he like he could be a good person for her."

"But he was a good person," Kyoko said.

"Maybe. He still lied to her, though. She called him a fairy and he let her believe it. For two weeks or so, she gave him his angelic wings back. For two weeks, the little princess let the demon boy fly. She gave him his wings. And he loved her for it.

"But it was not to be," Ren said, eyes growing dark, his expression distant. "All things must come to an end, and so the little princess and the little demon boy met one last time. He meant to give her an address, to tell her he wasn't actually a fairy, but he couldn't bear to be another person that lied to her and hurt her. Instead, he gave her his most precious possession: a little stone called iolite that changed colour in the sun."

Kyoko pulled out her necklace by its stone, unclasping it and holding it out to him. Ren took it, held it up to the fire, watching the play of light, the stone a different colour in the incandescence, before pressing it against his lips. "Corn," she said.

"Corn. Kuon. After the demon's return to the kingdom of Hollywood, things got worse. The older he got, the more people compared him to his father. Job after job after job after job fired him, claiming he was riding on the fame of his father. It only made him angrier, more volatile. The demon boy got into more and more fights.

Ren took a deep breath. "And then one day, the demon boy killed a man."

"You didn't kill him," Kyoko says, voice filled with emotion, beside herself.

Ren smiled weakly. "It may as well have been by my hand. And so Hizuri Kuon was ready to give up on life. Ready to end it all. Until his Fairy Godfather gave him an offer he couldn't refuse. Time in Japan. Japan, where he met a little princess a long time ago. He jumped at the chance. It was the hardest thing he'd ever had to do, picking up all the heritage he'd shoved aside, learning how to read and write as fluently as a native. He felt like a young child again, just reborn."

Kyoko murmured, "Like a snake growing into its skin or a bird learning how to fly."

Ren snuggled into her side, squeezing her hand. "A phoenix rising from the ashes after crashing and burning. It truly ended up being his rebirth. He quickly soared to the top of the charts; a combination of his newly learned professionalism and the lack of his father's shadow. He learned how to fly using his broken wings.

"And then he met her. His little princess, all grown up too. But she'd been deeply hurt by the very one she'd called her prince. Only the demon boy could see her fledgling angel wings, small as they were. He didn't like her motivation for acting. He didn't know who she was at the time. He didn't remember her she'd changed so much."

"But she was his princess all the same," Kyoko said. "He could tell by her wings," Kyoko said sagely.

"That she was! Then one day, he heard her shout his name, saw that he stone he'd given her so long ago had become her most precious possession, and he fell in love all over again."

"Of course, I didn't know then that Tsuruga Ren was Hizuri Kuon. The boy who'd given me the best days of my life and a way to cope with sadness," Kyoko said.

"It wasn't right away of course, and there were many trials along the way, not the least of which she'd given up on love just when he finally found it again. His love for acting, his love for himself, for others. Like before, he could be a good person, if only for her," Ren said.

"What the little demon boy didn't realise was the little princess was born with chains and padlocks all over her heart. Every unkind word, every ounce of pain, every bit of hurt went into Pandora's box. It made the chains stronger, all the negative feelings. Then one day, one major hurt opened the box, and all her evil spirits flew out, leaving only the hope for a better life."

"It was like a quest for the demon boy and the little princess," Ren said. "They found out they worked better as a team."

"And she was absurdly grateful for everything that had come before, because without those challenges, she wouldn't be where she was today. And every time she stretched her wings, she learned it made them grow."

"And like ice, the demon's bitter heart melted, and spring came into his heart again, thanks to her."

"And the support of everyone around them," Kyoko said.

"And the support of everyone around them," Ren parroted, nodding. "They learned they weren't alone."

"Was it a happy ending?" Kyoko asked.

"Well," Ren said, thinking it over. "That still has yet to be seen. But I'd like to think so," he said. "The fairy princess became the fairy queen and rules the fairy realm. She has lots of fans that can see her passionate love for acting. She's on top of the acting realm."

"Kuon, I'm glad we made it here. And you forgot to say she's married to the most wonderful fairy King who finally grew wings bigger than his father's. I'm so happy."

He sat up and took her into his arms. "I am too, my queen."

"It was a long and terrible journey."

"But we came out the better for it. Merry Christmas, dear to my heart," Ren whispered, kissing Kyoko's cheek, "and Happy Birthday."

She rested her head against his shoulder. "Merry Christmas, Kuon."

And they sat there like that until the fire became embers.


End file.
